“Verizon moved into third position following its acquisition of Alltel Wireless. Vodafone moved into sixth place, displacing France Telecom. France Telecom lost market share because of its heavy exposure to the European market, which accounts for 90% of its revenue compared with 75% for Deutsche Telekom and only 62% for Telefónica,” said Roz Roseboro, the author of the report.

The top ten ranking changes significantly when the operators are ranked according to their earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA):

According to Roseboro, increased competition is reducing pricing power in some markets, while in other markets subscriber numbers are not growing. In either case, customer retention is critical.

“Operators in mature markets need to find ways to extract more value from mobile data traffic in order to fund the necessary investments in mobile infrastructure," said Roseboro. "Operators in growth markets need to plan for a shift from subscriber acquisition to revenue generation by segmenting their customer base and offering tailored packages that will increase loyalty and usage.”